Loose Ends
by Luciferine
Summary: Before the Fireflies and before the cure, Marlene is just another frightened survivor trying to make it through another day. Then she meets Anna, and nothing is ever the same again. Cross-posted from Tumblr.


**AN: This started out with me speculating about Anna's reaction to the entire cure debacle, and ended with what I can only describe as a study of Anna and Marlene over the course of their friendship. I imagine this set in the same universe as SOTM, but it's obviously set before the actual series started. Set in Marlene's POV. Enjoy. **

Everything's _burning_. Her legs, her eyes, her chest, they're all on fire. Her lungs are bursting and she's too exhausted and too famished to keep up the pace, but if she stops she dies. She won't let that happen. She hasn't survived this long just to give up now. If she can just escape, she'll be okay.

(The ration cards sit heavy in her pocket, her mouth watering at the thought of _food_. She can't remember the last time she ate...)

She hears the pounding of footsteps behind her. "Get back here!" The soldier's voice is far too close for her liking. She tries to speed up, but her body won't give anymore. She curses, ducking into an alley and praying they won't see her in the fading light. Just in case, she fumbles for her gun.

(It's strange to think of the weapon as hers. Not too long ago, she was poking fun at her father for keeping it around. _"You never know", _he'd told her. And he'd been right. She doesn't know whether to laugh or sob at the memory, deciding to do neither until she's stopped running for her life. Her heart aches at the thought of him, and of her mother and her family and the life she's lost.)

She grits her teeth as tears start to sting her eyes. _Not now, dammit. Get it together, _she admonishes herself fiercely.

She flips off the safety, aims the gun in front of her. _Please don't let them find me, please..._ "She went this way!" She shuts her eyes for a moment, shaking. There's no way she can take them all on, no fucking way she can get out of this. She hears them at the alley entrance and presses herself against a wall. She sees the beams from their flashlights.

Something grabs her arm, yanking her deeper into the shadows and out of sight.

She has the presence of mind not to scream, but she kicks out her legs, hitting whoever it is and earning a muffled curse. "For fuck's sake, I'm trying to help, you dumb bitch," seethes a female voice. Marlene stops lashing out, too winded to speak. She can't make out a face, but as her eyes adjust she sees the outline of a person. "Just shut up, okay? I don't wanna get caught, either." Marlene scowls in the dark, wanting to point out that she wasn't the one talking to begin with. She curbs the urge, but just barely.

Still, the stranger has a point. She keeps her mouth shut, and they stand there, crouched in the dark. Her heart feels like it's jumping out of her chest, and she's irrationally worried that the soldiers will be able to hear it from here.

She has no way to measure the time that passes. It feels like hours, like days. She's shocked to hear the footsteps eventually recede, disgruntled voices growing inaudible with distance. When she's certain they're gone, she heaves a shaky sigh of relief, knees buckling slightly.

The stranger huffs exasperatedly. "C'mon, I know somewhere that's safe." Not waiting for agreement or interrogation, they brush past Marlene, back out into the alley.

"Are you crazy?" Marlene hisses, backing further into the crevice. "They were just here!"

"Which means they won't be coming back anytime soon," the stranger quips, in a tone that questions Marlene's reasoning skills. Unable to find an appropriate response, Marlene follows reluctantly, gun ready at her side. They move in silence through backstreets and alleys she doesn't entirely recognize. They pause a few times, ducking out of the way of military patrols.

True to her word, her guide doesn't lead them into any trouble. She seems to know her way around well enough, and they reach their destination in far shorter time than Marlene would have expected. At least, she thinks this is their destination. It looks like it might have been someone's shed, once. Maybe a small garage. Piles of junk cover the floor- broken tools, old carpets, a broken flower pot.

"It's not much," admits the stranger almost sheepishly, "but it's home." She looks over at Marlene, expression challenging. It's at this point, where there's no immediate danger and she can get a chance to finally _breathe_, that Marlene actually looks at her unlikely savior. She's _young, _far younger than Marlene would have expected for someone so assured, with messy red hair and bright green eyes and _freckles_, for God's sake. They might be roughly the same age, but she'd wager the other girl is younger.

There's a delicateness to her, despite her standoffish demeanor, and Marlene thinks she can understand why this girl knows how to hide so well. There's an almost unanimous fate shared by all the small, pretty things in the QZ. Personally, Marlene would rather take her chances with a horde of hungry Infected.

"It's... cozy," she says finally, when it becomes apparent that the other girl is waiting for a reply. The redhead snorts rudely, and gestures towards the structure.

"Come in, I guess." The other girl sprawls onto an unrolled sleeping bag, and Marlene nudges some of the junk with her foot, clearing a space to sit. They stay there in absolute silence for a few moments, the lack of sound awkward and tense.

"Why'd you help me?" Marlene asks finally. The girl shrugs, picking split ends from her hair.

"Why were you running?" she counters, not looking up from her hair.

"You can't answer a question with a question."

"Oh, really?" Marlene rolls her eyes, and makes to get up. If she's not getting answers, then she's not going to bother. The redhead huffs. "Fine. Yeesh, ever heard of a sense of humor? You were running from the soldiers, which means you had something they wanted, and I was curious. That's it." Marlene gives her a skeptical look. "And... maybe I've seen what happens to girls the soldiers catch. Maybe I've seen it enough times to not have the stomach for it again. So." Marlene shudders.

"Yeah... thanks for that," she says quietly. The redhead shrugs. The silence is a bit less strained this time. Marlene thinks of the ration cards in her pocket, tries to calculate how long they'll last if they're split between two people. Finally, she reaches into her pocket. "I... I took these," Marlene says quietly. The redhead looks up, eyes growing wide as she catches sight of the cards.

"Shit, man," she whispers, eyes growing impossibly wide. For the first time in a long while, Marlene manages a laugh.

"Right? I can't even remember the last time I ate."

"Me neither," the other girl confesses. There's a look of pure longing in her eyes that tugs at Marlene's heartstrings. She takes a couple of cards and holds them out. "Seriously?" the redhead asks, hesitating. Marlene nods. The cards are pulled out of her hand so fast she thinks they cut the skin of her hand. For a moment, the other girl looks heart-wrenchingly young and vulnerable, and Marlene is again reminded of everything the Outbreak has taken.

"For saving my ass back there," Marlene clarifies awkwardly. "I don't usually..." She trails off and shrugs.

"I don't want any fucking charity," the girl mutters. "We're even. It's cool." Awkward silence reigns over the small space once more.

"It's getting dark," Marlene notes, voice low.

"You got somewhere to be?" the girl asks. It's an innocent enough question, but Marlene thinks on it for a very long time.

"No," she says finally. "I really don't."

The redhead goes back to her split ends, pretending at a nonchalance Marlene doesn't believe. "Safety in numbers," she says flippantly, as if the thought has just occurred to her.

"There's only two of us," Marlene points out unnecessarily. Despite her words, she's already thinking of how much of a relief it would be, to have someone to talk to, someone to go through all this shit with.

The girl shrugs. "Still better than one." And really, Marlene doesn't think there's an argument against that. The redhead may have a mouth on her, but she's smart, fast and, most importantly, she's a survivor.

"I can stay for a while," Marlene finds herself saying. "See if it works out." The redhead nods, ducking her head, but Marlene thinks she can see a smile. "I'm Marlene," she introduces, because she realizes that they're planning on bunking together and they don't even know each other's _names._ The redhead looks up and offers a hand, which Marlene shakes.

"Anna," the redhead says. "My name is Anna."

* * *

><p>They work well together. Anna teaches her the best hiding places, the fastest routes around -and even out of- the QZ. Marlene shows her the best places to loot, and how to filch from other survivors and, when they're feeling particularly brave, from the soldiers.<p>

Life isn't exactly easy, but it's definitely _easier_. It might just be the simple human desire for company, but Marlene thinks that it's more than that. It's _Anna_. She's smart and resourceful, and wickedly talented with her switchblade. More importantly, she makes their daily struggle for survival _bearable_. She has an incredible sense of humor, though Marlene doubts there's a joke in her repertoire that isn't incredibly inappropriate for the situations there in.

_("Hey, Marlene. Marlene. Marleeeeene..."_

_"What?"_

_"Wanna hear a joke?" _

_"Oh god... is this really the time?"_

_"Yep. Okay, so a nun gets lost and walks into a bar-"_

_"Anna, watch out!"_

_"Wha- MOTHERFUCKER!"_

_"Told you."_

_"You didn't tell me I was about to eat dirt. Bitch. Fucking pothole..."_

_"Poor baby. Keep telling me about the nun. And hurry up. We'd better haul some ass if we want to eat tonight.") _

It's comfortable, more comfortable than anything has a right to be in the aftermath of the apocalypse. Marlene keeps telling herself not to get attached. People drop like flies nowadays and caring about someone is just setting yourself up for misery. She knows that. She's already lost people. And yet, against her best efforts, she lets herself care.

_("Get off her, you son of a bitch!"_

_"Hey, what the-"_

_"Anna?! Jesus, what are you doing here? Anna, relax. You got him good. He's not getting up anytime soon. I thought I told you to hang back." _

_"You're welcome for saving your sorry ass. Again." _

_"That was incredibly stupid."_

_"You're incredibly stupid. I, on the other hand, was brave as fuck." _

_"Yeah. You were, weren't you? Listen, let's just get out of- really, Anna? Don't kick the man while he's down."_

_"He's lucky I don't curb-stomp his ugly mug. No douchebag tries to rob my best friend and gets away with it." _

_"It's fine, Anna. I could've handled him. He just wanted the ration cards." _

_"Whatever."_

_"Stubborn brat."_

_"Bitch."_

_"I thought I was your best friend?"_

_"Shut your fucking trap, Marlene.")_

Being lulled into a false sense of security is dangerous, she knows. She tries to be realistic, even when they're joking around and having fun. At any moment, this could all be gone. But they're tough, aren't they? They've made it this long. Maybe they've got a few years left in them.

(She'd like to see how Anna's hair looks streaked through with grey).

* * *

><p>"I don't like it, Marlene," Anna mutters.<p>

Marlene sighs deeply, head already pounding from the direction she _knows_ this conversation is going to take. "It's just a meeting, Anna. We're not overthrowing the military."

"Yet," the redhead adds, none too happily. "That's the endgame, isn't it? Shut down the military, bring back peaceful rule?" Her voice turns sarcastic towards the end, and Marlene gives her a disappointed look.

"Why do you have to say it like that?" she asks wearily.

"Like what?" counters Anna with mock-innocence, in the way that she knows Marlene hates.

"Like it's idealistic bullshit."

Anna shrugs, leaning back against the wall. "You said it, not me."

"You're _thinking_ it," Marlene grits out, beyond annoyed at her friend's attitude.

"You know, friends really should tell friends when they gain telepathic abilities. How else will I be able to disguise my filthy little thoughts from your omnipotent probing?"

"Can you just be serious for _once_? I swear, ever since I joined up with the Fireflies it's like... we're not even on the same page. What's your problem?"

Anna sits up straight, eyes flashing. "_My_ problem? I'm not the one running around trying to usurp the fucking _military_. Fucking hell, Marlene. You've seen what they can do."

"That doesn't mean we can't _try_. God, at least I'm trying to do _something_. If we could restore government rule, then maybe we could straighten things out, maybe... maybe we could find a cure." Her voice softens on the last word.

Anna shakes her head. "Marlene..." Her voice is soft now as well, eyes sad. "Everybody and their mother's been looking for a cure since day one. It's been _years_. Not weeks, or months, or even _a _year. It doesn't exist. You're risking your life for something that _doesn't exist_."

"And if you're wrong?" Marlene challenges.

"You can spend the rest of our significantly increased lifespans telling me 'I told you so'," Anna offers quietly. Her are are glazed over with a faraway look, and she looks impossibly sad. For once, Marlene doesn't feel sympathy. She's far too angry.

"So you want us to do what? Just accept or fate and wait to die?"

Anna fixes her with a solemn look. "I want us to _survive_. Us. You and me. And I'm worried that you're so caught up in this Firefly scheme that you won't notice the danger you're in until it's too late." She turns her head away, eyes tight. "Don't make me bury the only person I have left, Marlene."

What the hell is she supposed to say to that? Instead, she turns on her heel and leaves. She has a meeting to get to.

(She comes back later, and they apologize to each other. They don't bring up the Fireflies again. Things go back to normal... mostly).

* * *

><p>"Honey, I'm home," trills Anna in a singsong voice, strolling in with a bag in hand.<p>

Marlene jumps to her feet, relief seeping through her. "Where the hell have you been? It's been _hours_, Anna. I thought..." she trails off, shaking her head. "Nevermind. Just... where'd you go?"

Anna smiles slyly, holding up the bag. "To get us some goodies. Look what I found." She spreads out a blanket and empties the bag out onto it. Marlene gapes at the contents, grabbing at them to make sure she's not hallucinating. Ration cards, but so much more than that, too. Granola bars, bags of nuts and dried fruit, even-

"Is that chocolate?" Marlene asks, voice hushed. Anna nods, grin nearly splitting her face.

"Pretty cool, huh?" The redhead leans back, face smug. Marlene spends a few more moments rifling through the loot, before something dawns on her.

"Anna... how'd you get all this?" she asks quietly. "We haven't been able to scrounge up anything these past weeks, and suddenly you come home with all this?"

Anna shrugs. "It was no big deal, seriously."

Marlene looks at her intently. "Anna..." Her voice wavers and trails off, unsure. "You didn't... tell me you didn't let some bastard..." She can't even make herself say the word. She thinks of the blank-faced girls -and they _are_ girls, barely a single one of them out of their teens- that let men pull them into dark corners and hurt them, for the smallest scrap of food. She imagines Anna stumbling out of a soldier's tent, shaking and bloody. She feels sick to her stomach.

"Fuck me?" Anna finishes with her usual lack of candor. Her eyes grow hard. "You think I whored myself out? Seriously?"

Marlene spreads her hands out in a helpless gesture. "I'm very open to any other possibilities." She can't get the image out of her head. She looks pleadingly at Anna and prays she's wrong

Anna rolls her eyes. "If you must know, I made a friend." Marlene shoots her a skeptical look.

"A military friend? A hunter, maybe?" She doesn't know why she's asking. She doesn't want to know, doesn't want to have any clearer of an image than she already does. The faceless man she pictures tearing at her best friend's clothes is awful enough without any further detail.

"A friend. What he does for a living is none of your business. He's cool, I swear."

Marlene shuts her eyes, shaking her head with dismay. She takes the evasion as affirmation, and her head whirs with everything that could have gone wrong, that could still go wrong. "Jesus, Anna..."

"Dude, stop freaking out. No clothes were removed. No skin-to-skin contact was had on this day. Well... okay, he grabbed my hand to stop me from eating asphalt when I tripped. What a fiend. Should we have him drawn and quartered?" she asks with a cheeky smirk.

Marlene glares at her, far too concerned to be relieved. "Anna, this is _serious_. What if he comes looking for you? What if next time he wants to do more than hold your hand?" A new thought occurs to her, and she swallows against rising anxiety. "What if he comes here and finds a piece of my Firefly gear? If he finds out that I'm... oh, _god_... it could ruin everything." There's a reason she keeps her social life concentrated on Anna and _only_ Anna. The less people she interacts with outside of the Fireflies, the less chance there is of her cover being blown.

Anna stares at her, wide-eyed. "Shit. I probably shouldn't have used 'so guess what super-secret anti-military group my best friend is a part of' as a conversation starter, huh?" Marlene has a moment of sheer panic before Anna bursts into laughter, and she realizes the redhead was joking. "Fuck, how stupid do you think I am? Wait, don't answer that." She holds up a hand as Marlene opens her mouth. "He has no idea. It's fine, Marlene. Eat your fucking chocolate."

* * *

><p>Anna steps our frequently to meet her <em>friend<em>. For the first little while, she always brings something back. Then, when her outings become more frequent, she occasionally returns home empty-handed.

"Food doesn't appear miraculously in his hands," Anna mutters defensively the first time she comes home with nothing to show for it. "He's not a fucking wizard. He needs time." And yet, that doesn't stop her from going to check. Constantly.

(Which is fine, really. Marlene has far too much work to do for the Fireflies, anyways. It's a good thing that Anna isn't around to distract her. At least, that's what she tells herself).

And if she keeps herself awake worrying one night because Anna isn't home, it's nothing but concern at the inconvenience. She pretends to ignore the way relief kicks her in the gut when she sees her friend tiptoe inside gingerly. She also pretends her stomach doesn't drop when she sees the unfamiliar jacket draped over the redhead's shoulders. She can't see if it's military or not in the dim light, but she knows by the shape that it's a man's.

(They don't talk about it in the morning. Anna spends more nights away. Marlene spends more time with the Fireflies. They continue on like this for some time).

* * *

><p>The first time Marlene wakes up to the sound of her best friend throwing up, she chalks it up to a reaction to some food. Maybe even a touch of the stomach bug. Anna's tough; Marlene's more worried about catching it than anything else.<p>

As it begins to happen continually, though, Marlene begins to worry. Anna has grown even paler and thinner than usual; she looks half-dead. Marlene even goes so far as to tell Anna to ask her friend for some medicine. She does it through gritted teeth, not wanting to send her back to him -god knows what payment he'll demand for medicine- but completely devoid of other options. Predictably, Anna shrugs it off and says she's fine.

Weeks pass, and while the vomiting stops happening like clockwork, Anna's color doesn't return and she doesn't fill back out. Anything Marlene gives seems to trigger another round of violent sickness. Marlene starts to panic. She even manages to bring home medicine -it cost a fortune but she doesn't care, they'll make it back when Anna's better- only to have Anna decline it.

"Stop being so fucking stubborn!" Marlene finally explodes, worry and anxiety finally pushing her off the edge. "Take the goddamn medicine before I shove it down your throat!"

Anna simply shakes her head sadly. "I can't," she confesses.

"What the hell do you mean, you _can't_?" Marlene demands answers for a good ten minutes, voice rising with every moment that Anna stays silent. "Fuck, Anna. Just _tell_ me!"

(She does).

"Oh," is the only response Marlene can give.

(At least it's better than 'I told you so').

* * *

><p>They don't talk about the father.<p>

(Some things don't need saying).

* * *

><p>It's a rough nine months for both of them, but Marlene knows beyond a doubt that Anna's gotten the shorter end of the deal.<p>

In the beginning, Marlene tries to change her mind. There are _options_. Not very good ones, but still. Besides, and she tries this reasoning many times at the start, Anna _hates_ kids. She's honestly surprised the redhead isn't more upset.

Anna seems dead-set on seeing it through, though. She gives some bullshit excuse about it being safer to just deliver the kid -and oh _god_, it's gonna be a kid, there's a kid inside of her best friend- than to take any extreme measures, but Marlene's willing to bet it's more than that.

She sees the way Anna's hand constantly goes to her stomach, almost subconsciously, like she's trying to protect it. She listens to her talk absentmindedly to her unborn child.

(Sometimes, Marlene even hears her sing).

* * *

><p>Marlene knows it can't end well. Somewhere deep inside her, she knows. But knowing doesn't make watching it happen any easier.<p>

Anna seems to disappear by slow degrees, skin stretching tight and her stomach almost comically large against her thin frame. Marlene doesn't know if it's the baby or illness or a bit of both that's doing her in. Quite frankly, she doesn't think it matters all that much. Her best friend is dying. Admitting it doesn't make the reality any easier to handle, and the pain of it is a punch to her gut.

Time passes strangely, blurring together in quick bursts and slow trickles. Life continues, as it invariably does. Anna tells terribly inappropriate jokes, and they pretend not to notice how shallow Anna's breathing becomes afterwards. Marlene brings back as much food as she dares.

(She doesn't tell Anna, but she goes looking for the baby's father a few times. All her inquiries fall short, and she finally has to admit defeat. The son of a bitch cut and run. She expects to feel some sort of satisfaction, but all that comes up is sadness. She knows Anna loves him, and that's enough for her to want to find him. For Anna to see him, one last time. God, she wishes things were different...)

She tries her best to measure the months as they pass, wanting to be ready, to be prepared.

(Nothing could have prepared her for the smell of blood and her best friend's screams waking her up in the middle of the night).

* * *

><p>It's touch and go, for a while. They end up in what passes for a medical center in the QZ, sick and dying people crowded around them. It's a horrible place for a child to be born. Who the hell is she kidding? It's a horrible <em>world<em> for a child to be born.

It takes forever, with Anna screaming bloody murder and crushing Marlene's hand in hers. The hack doctor tries to come near her with a scalpel and Marlene decks him with her free hand. He stays away, after that.

A lifetime later, it's done. Anna's stopped screaming, but there's a new voice filling the silence with piercing shrieks. The kid is slippery and bloody and _tiny_. It seems entirely unlikely that this little creature has caused so much grief; she seems so _vulnerable_.

Marlene never forgets the look on Anna's face when she holds her daughter for the first time. It's the purest, deepest sort of love. "She's beautiful," Anna whispers. "She's so beautiful, so perfect..." Marlene swallows painfully, tears pricking her eyes at the exhaustion on the other woman's face. "Do you want to hold her?" Anna asks after a long while of admiring her daughter. It occurs to Marlene, as she's taking the little bundle from Anna's arms, that she shouldn't be the second person to hold the baby. Anna should have been able to ask someone else. But Marlene's all she has.

She doesn't stop the tears this time. "Hey, beautiful," she croons. The baby opens her eyes at the sound. Marlene gasps softly. "Oh, Anna... she has your eyes." The pure pride on her friend's face nearly undoes her. "What's her name?"

Anna smiles softly. "Ellie," she says, as if she's known the answer for a long time. "Her name is Ellie."

* * *

><p>Every agony, every horror Marlene has had to endure up until now is insignificant against this pain. She clutches her hand into a fist, crinkling the note in her hand.<p>

(She wants to burn it, wants to forget Anna ever existed, but she _did_ exist and all that's left of her now is an orphan and a piece of paper and Marlene has to keep them both safe because she _promised_).

She stands at the foot of her best friend's grave, Ellie snoozing quietly in the crook of her arm and Anna's switchblade burning a hole in the back pocket of her jeans. She doesn't have any tears left to cry, so she just touches the gravemarker and whispers, "Good-bye."

_Take care of her. _Anna's last words to her echo through her mind, repeating on a loop. "I will. I promise," she says to the empty air. Ellie sniffles and starts to fuss, distracting her. Marlene adjusts her grip, making soothing sounds. "It's alright, Ellie. You're going to be alright."

* * *

><p>She can't raise a child and lead the Fireflies. She tells herself that it's a necessary sacrifice. Anna would understand.<p>

(She can't shake the guilt that hangs over her as she leaves the boarding school).

* * *

><p>It's not like she doesn't check up on the girl. She keeps tabs constantly. She even goes herself, most of the time. And when she can't, she sends the ones she trusts most.<p>

(It get harder and harder as the years go on. Ellie looks so much like her mother that it hurts to watch for too long...)

* * *

><p>It must be some cosmic joke, for Anna -beautiful, skeptical Anna- to have given birth to humanity's cure.<p>

(Marlene's not laughing).

* * *

><p>"Oh, I miss you Anna. You're daughter will be with you soon." She clicks off the recorder. "I'm sorry," she whispers. "Oh god, I'm so sorry."<p>

_Take care of her..._

(She didn't).

* * *

><p><em>"You'd just come after her..."<em>

A gunshot.

Silence.

Dark.

Relief.

* * *

><p><em>"I've missed you..."<em>

_"I know."_

_"I had to."_

_"No." _

_"I'm sorry..."_

_"I know." _

_"Is she...?"_

_"She's in good hands."_

_"You trust him?"_

_"With her life." _

_"I'm so sorry."_

_"You said." _

_"Forgive me?" _

_..._

_"Anna?" _


End file.
